A couple of years ago I put up a small pergola in the back yard. It’s main function was to provide shade for the garden and I didn’t put a lot of detailed effort into it. The boards on top were a bit wiggly. The posts weren’t completely square. One post even had a twist in it. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

Now, a couple of years later, we’ve decided to put in an outdoor seating area and we want to tie the two together. What was “good enough” is now problematic! Since this new area will have more function, it requires more form as well. I tried to make it work without any changes to what was wrong, but it just didn’t work. Fresh ideas, even if they are good ideas, that are built on bad work will fail. I had to re-engineer both structures in order for them to work properly.

If I try to get my new “recovered” life to work properly when I have neglected to address the problems in my past, I am setting myself up for failure. As they say “If you fail to plan, plan to fail.” I need a thorough Fourth Step before I can really step forth! Sometimes we need to tear some stuff down before we can…

–Rise Up!!